Last week, EA Mythic announced that they would most likely breach the 1 million mark for beta signups for their upcoming MMO, Warhammer Online. I have issues with this kind of a statement. I cannot believe they actually think this is a benchmark for potential sales. Preorders are a benchmark, but the number of folks who sign up for a free beta is not. I know one blog indicated that it might be something they use to taunt the folks who are developing Age of Conan. This all feels like an attempt to demonstrate how these guys will be the number 2 MMO since I sincerely doubt that any of these games will unseat the 8-kajillion pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft.
Now, I will admit I do have a fair amount of excitement for the title. I really enjoyed Dark Age of Camelot and probably should have stuck with that game versus playing Everquest for so long. I will also mention I signed up for the beta for Warhammer almost a year ago (and I am still waiting for my invite Mythic!!!), but they have to realize that most people will sign up for free early access to these games. I know some folks submit bugs and treat the game like a test, and I have done that sometimes. But anybody that tells you that they are there to simply test the game is deceiving themselves, and I feel quoting a number about beta signups is not a useful statistic.
Posted by Tim at Tuesday April 08, 2008 - 11:11 AM | TrackBack (0) | Category: Crunchy Curmudgeony Goodness | © 2008 Gaming Signal
Heh, I agree Tim. They might as well be posting web site hits as a predictor of success. Highly speculative!
Posted by scottsh on Monday April 14, 2008 at 12:41 PM
Well, I will be playing pretty much no matter what. DAOC was my favorite MMO to date and it would bug me to no end if I did not at least give Warhammer Online a spin. If they can keep the whole (rock, scissors, paper) classes aspect similar to DAOC with some extra PVP sauce, I'll be hooked.
I do admit though that in the last trailer for Warhammer Online the character animations needed a great deal of work on them. There was a lot of "skating" and poorly handled "looping" of animations. But I thought the world/scenery looked excellent.
Still looking forward to this game.
Posted by tditto on Tuesday April 15, 2008 at 9:34 AM